


The Three Houses They Flipped and The One They Bought

by crystalkei



Series: The Long Way Home [2]
Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-17
Updated: 2016-10-28
Packaged: 2018-08-23 00:16:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,870
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8306507
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crystalkei/pseuds/crystalkei
Summary: A mini sequel to The Long Way Home Clarke and Bellamy are flipping houses for HGTV.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Quentanilien](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Quentanilien/gifts).



_ Kansas _

 

“I think I swallowed a bug.” Clarke’s eyes widened and she stuck out her tongue. 

Bellamy snorted and Miller outright laughed. 

“I’m serious, guys, it’s gross!” She shook her head, walked out of frame, and grabbed Raven’s water, taking a swig and swishing the water around, then spitting it out. 

“C’mon! We have to resurface the floors! Don’t put your bug spit on them,” Bellamy chastised.

“This place is a dump, why did we buy this one?” Clarke cried, in between repeating the whole water, swish, and spit routine.  

“Because it’s a good story. There were squatters, it’s full of garbage and bugs, this is what people want to see you doing,” Raven explained, urging the cameraman to push in on Clarke spitting again. “Even you swallowing a bug is gonna make for some bright comic relief. I’m so proud of you.” 

“I hate you,” Clarke said, sticking her tongue out one more time. 

“You’re being dramatic,” Bellamy said. 

“Am I? You wanna come over here and let me stick my tongue in your mouth? It’s got some bug on it still, just for you.” 

Bellamy took an exaggerated step back. 

“Tell me you got that?” Raven asked and the cameraman nodded. “That’s going in the teaser.”

“I hate all of you.” Clarke pointed at each of them. “I’m going to brush my teeth.” 

“Love you!” Bellamy called after her. 

“I hope you swallow a bug!” she shouted as she walked backwards towards out of the house. 

 

\--

_ Oregon _

 

“Joanna fuckin’ Gaines is getting her own lifestyle magazine.” Clarke glared at the TV in the hotel lobby. 

“The network didn't give it to her, I think it's a subsidiary of Texas Monthly,” Bellamy offered, coming up behind her and scratching her back before resting his hand on her hip. 

“Nope, Raven tried to tell me that too but look.” She shoved her phone at him and he read the tweet. 

_ Magnolia Magazine, newest lifestyle publication from HGTV _

“You wanna bitch about clocks or shiplap?” Bellamy asked, guiding her away from the TV and towards the bar, knowing this was gonna take over the whole night. Good thing they'd already finished most of the design work. 

“Why does she like clusters of clocks? Why? Does she fear death and think having that many clocks will warn her somehow?”

Bellamy tried not to laugh.

“Why is her husband such an idiot and why does she encourage that? She shouldn't encourage him!”

“People love them, Clarke, you're just being petty.”

"This from the guy known to punch Property Brothers,” Clarke replied.

"That was one time and you know Jonathan deserved it," Bellamy raised his voice and realized he was on her level so he tried to calm down. “Drew deserves it too but he hasn’t provoked me yet.” 

"He will soon.” Clarke picked at the edge of the bar. “It's not even petty, they're just not being honest about how their business works"   
  
"We're on TV. The entire channel is lying to people about real estate."   
  
"Not us."    
  
"In the intro to the show you literally say in the voice over 'we use our own cash to buy the houses' if you've got that cash can you spot me?” Bellamy asked. “I've been wanting a new XBox.” 

“Where would you even put an XBox? We’re on the road 10 months out of the year.” Clarke gave him a look. 

“True, it’d be nice to be settled somewhere.” He threw it out without thinking, he’d been dreaming of he and Clarke having gender compartmentalized storage of their own.

“We worked hard to convince the network to keep this show on the air, you regretting that about now?” she asked, her eyebrow raised. 

“No,” he said, thinking maybe he should backtrack a little to avoid an awkward conversation that maybe she wasn’t ready to have. “I’m thrilled to be gainfully employed and happy to make out with you on camera, whenever I want.”

“You gotta stop doing that, you’re running out the film,” Monty said, joining them at the bar. 

“Don’t act like you don’t enjoy cutting all that into a beautiful love story for the viewers at home,” Clarke said, her leaning her head on Monty’s shoulder. 

“I think I liked editing you two better when you hated each other.” Monty put his beer on the counter. “So the house is all ready, we’ve set up a fake auction, and I’ve sent you the loose scripts. Just make it look exciting because the house looks to be in pretty good shape. Should be an easy flip. In and out in 15 days.” 

“Don't jinx us, man.” Bellamy pointed to the door and Clarke did the same.

“Go outside, turn around and spit!” Clarke added. 

“I'm not going to do that,” Month said.

“If we find asbestos, you're fired.” Clarke narrowed her eyes.

“I can't believe I work like this.” Monty shook his head. “I'm lining up the next house right now.”

“Where is it?” Bellamy asked. 

“Texas.” 

“Better be far away from Joanna fuckin’ Gaines,” Clarke ground out. 

Monty cringed. 

“Oh no, did I just set her off?” he asked Bellamy. 

“Yeah,” Bellamy took Clarke’s hand. “But I got her, I’m gonna put grouchy pants to bed so she can dream of ripping all the shiplap out of one of Joanna’s houses.” 

“Shiplap is old wood! It’s probably rotting! It’s a stupid design feature! It’s the chevrons of 2016 and it needs to die!” Clarke shouted over her shoulder as Bellamy walked to the elevator. 

“You’re not even the designer,” he said when she was through. 

“But I went to art school, not at stupid Baylor either. But at UCLA!” 

“Oh boy, it’s gonna be a night with you, isn’t it?” Bellamy asked. 

“I wanna make a pyre of shiplap and burn it,” Clarke said. 

“Okay, babe.” 

 

\--

 

_ Rhode Island _

 

“Kitchens sell houses,” Bellamy said. 

Clarke was standing in the stripped down to the studs area where the kitchen used to be. Bellamy wanted to move it to old dining room and make this area the new dining room. 

“Master bathrooms sell houses,” Clarke countered. 

“They both do,” Miller groaned. “Stop bickering and get on with it. Just tell me where the kitchen needs to go so I can order cabinets.”

“Cherry lowers and white uppers with frosted glass doors.” Bellamy motioned to where the cabinets would go in his version of the kitchen. 

Clarke shook her head. “That cherry is too dark and it’s expensive. White lower cabinets and we’ll leave the top open for shelving.” 

“If we’re doing that, I wanna try something new,” Bellamy said, getting a mischievous glint in his eye. 

Clarke tilted her head. She knew that look, it meant he was about to suggest something that was going to cost a fortune. 

“What if we did a mosaic tile, something small, very custom, let it go from the wainscoting to the ceiling.” 

“You’re talking about putting very expensive mosaic tile on the wall.” Clarke put her hands on her hips. “That would look great in our house but not in this flip.”

“In our house?” Bellamy asked, a slow grin spreading across his face. “We don’t have a house.” 

“Um,” Clarke said, realizing she’d let it slip, the thing she’d been considering since he said he wished they could stop traveling so much, three episodes (and months) ago. “Right, we don’t. I’m just saying, eventually.”  

His smile widened, she didn’t think that was possible. 

“Eventually?” 

“Yeah, shut up, whatever, how much is the tile mosaic gonna cost?”

Bellamy didn’t say anything, he just kept grinning at her for a solid 30 seconds until she waved her hand for him to get on with it. 

“Really, you’re burning this tape, Bellamy,” Monty reminded him. 

“If you do it, we can probably do it for $1000,” Bellamy finally said. 

“If I do it? It’s going to take hours,” Clarke said, taking in the wall he wanted the mosaic on. “I don’t know that I want to take on that project.”

“C’mon, Clarke, it will look amazing.” 

“I’ll do it in our house,” she said. “But hire someone to do it in this house.” 

“Fine.” Bellamy pulled her by the hand to get her close enough to kiss her. “Wanna flip a house with me?”

“That’s the most romantic thing you’ve asked me,” Clarke said. 

“You flip houses for a living!” Miller shouted from the other side of the house. 

“Shut up,” Bellamy snapped back, leaning down to kiss Clarke again. 

 

\--

_ Southern California _

 

The stars aligned so perfectly, Bellamy really was starting to wonder if Raven had set this whole thing up and then pretended it was his idea. 

When Clarke and Bellamy started to research places to buy a house, Raven was contacted by the network. 

“They want to cut our production costs so they said pick a place and the show will now be based there. But it can’t be Texas or Nashville, for obvious reasons.” 

“Like I’d want to be near Joanna Gaines,” Clarke muttered.

“How come the Property Brothers get to keep traveling? How come we’re having our costs cut?” Bellamy asked. 

“You want to settle down, remember?” Clarke elbowed Bellamy. 

“True but if the Property Brothers get to keep-”  
  
Clarke put her hand over his mouth. 

“We’ll take Southern California because it’s close to Octavia and across the country from my mom,” Clarke told Raven. 

Bellamy took her wrist and moved it so he could speak. “Yeah, that’s perfect.” 

So they found a house and Raven plotted the best season finale she could think of. 

They'd their car stolen, there'd be more bugs, and the pool had some kind of algae that Clarke was sure could probably cure cancer if studied in a lab, but it could not stay in her pool. 

“Three bedrooms or four?” Bellamy asked her over Chinese food in their hotel room. 

“Four.” 

She took the iPad he was using to design the first floor from him to add a water feature in the master bath. Bellamy took the tablet back, shaking his head, and deleted the feature. 

“You won’t sleep at night if you can hear that water running,” he said in explanation. “Four bedrooms, huh? That means we need to make the closets smaller.” 

“Make the master bedroom smaller by two feet. And we don’t need a door to the master bathroom.” 

“We need a door.” 

He picked some broccoli out of the container with his chopsticks.

“Fine, put in pocket doors, I’m never gonna close them though,” Clarke said, taking the container from him. 

“Are we having three kids or are you desperate for an office?” he asked, casually. 

“I figured two and a guest room, we should have an office suite downstairs for both of us, and obviously after the first kid we’ll reevaluate what we want,” Clarke answered without missing a beat. 

“So you’ve thought about this a lot.” Bellamy grinned and Clarke shrugged.

“A normal amount.”

“Should we surprise Raven and end the episode with a proposal?” 

He’d been considering it but his mother had once told him that stuff didn’t happen like it happened on TV and you should always float the idea before proposing.

“Talk about it like adults, if you just spring it on someone, it puts them on edge and the answer will be too quick. You want to talk about it. Together,” his mother had said.

“Just makes sense,” Clarke said, putting down the Chinese food and scooting closer to him on the couch. “Wanna get married and cause our ratings to skyrocket?”

“You’re so romantic,” he said, but he reached for her face, leaning in to kiss her. “I think I’m going to put a whole wall of clocks in the dining room, very Joanna-”

“Don’t you dare,” Clarke said, smacking his chest before kissing him again. 

  
  
  
  
  
  



	2. Chapter 2

“What do you mean you didn’t tell your mom?” Bellamy asked, holding his hammer back and turning to look at her. 

 

“Okay, this sounds bad, but it’s really not,” Clarke started, holding her hands out in front of her. 

 

Bellamy raised an eyebrow. “It’s not as bad as it sounds? You didn’t tell your mother, the lady who mostly hates me, that we’re getting married? And she found out when our finale aired?”

 

“Like she ever watches our show.” Clarke put her hands on her hips. “I don’t even think she watched the Flip or Flop episode where we redid her house.”

 

Bellamy scowled. “She didn’t like the kitchen, didn’t like the family room, didn’t care for the backyard refresh that doubled her outside entertaining space but sure.” 

 

It was exactly as bad as it sounded. Clarke knew that, but she also knew that Bellamy was going to take this the wrong way. And he was. She could already see it in his eyes. He thought she was ashamed of him. 

 

“We’ve just been so busy since we wrapped on the season!” Clarke waved an arm around the office. 

 

The finale had focused on the technical stuff. They’d bought the house, torn down almost every existing wall, redesigned the layout, so for the sake of time and with TV magic, they’d purposely only focused on the living area, kitchen, and master suite. But they were still finishing the rest of the house. Every room had drywall but they’d spent the winter painting, flooring, and decorating the other rooms. Even as they were having this conversation, Bellamy was putting in the wainscotting in the office. 

 

“It’s been three months, you forgot to tell your mom we were getting married for three months?” Bellamy gave her a look. 

 

“Raven didn’t want me to wear my ring until the episode aired so yeah, I kind of forgot!” 

 

“There are six wedding magazines on our coffee table and Octavia has created like nine pinterest boards of ideas just for your bachelorette party, which by the way, I don’t think you should let her host.” 

 

“She’s not still begging to invite all the HGTV people is she? Because if Joanna Gaines walks into my party I will claw her eyes out and beat her to death with a plank of shiplap.” 

 

Bellamy whistled. “That should be terrifying but I’m a little turned on right now.” 

 

“Sorry, that was dark,” Clarke admitted. 

 

“Nah, it’s fine. Go on.” 

 

Clarke rolled her eyes and smacked his arm. “The point is, I just forgot and it means absolutely nothing beyond we’ve been busy, I hate talking to my mom, and I forgot to tell her. I’m thrilled to be getting married. I’m not ashamed of you in the least, actually, it’s a bonus that my mom hates you! Of all people, you should know, I love pissing my mom off!” 

 

“So how did she even find out if she doesn’t watch our show?” Bellamy asked, putting down the hammer and reaching for her, tugging her closer to him with his fingers hooked into her belt loops. 

 

“One of her friends called her.” Clarke put her hands around his neck. “So you know she’s mostly mad because she was embarrassed by being caught off guard.” 

 

“And to fix that you’re going to what?” Bellamy asked. 

 

“I told her we’d have a rehearsal dinner at the place she wanted.” 

 

“Tell me the place she wants is in the state of California and not on the east coast?” Bellamy sensed things were about to get messy. 

 

“It’s here, it’s here, but she wanted to pay for it.” 

 

“No.” Bellamy knew he was proud, but he wanted nothing in the form of money from Clarke’s mother. It was a disaster waiting to happen. “We make plenty of money to pay for all events tied to our wedding.” 

 

“Says the guy who keeps putting off buying that new Xbox,” Clarke teased. 

 

“That’s why we have enough money. I’m thrifty. And I keep thinking that one of these network events we’re going to will have a swag suite hosted by Microsoft.” He shrugged. “Besides, it’s Playstation VR now, that’s what I want.” 

 

“I’ll buy it for you as a wedding gift but you have to let my mom pay for the rehearsal dinner.” 

 

“Fine,” Bellamy gave in. “But she should stay here, when she comes, so she can see how great we are at designing houses and how awesome our house is and-” 

 

“So you can prove you’re so great, I know, but you don’t need to prove it to her.  _ I  _ know it and that’s all that matters.” Clarke leaned in and kissed him. 

 

“That’s very cute that you think you can distract me from the real point that you don’t want your mom in this house but it’s happening,” Bellamy said, a wry grin on his face when she pulled back. “Abby Griffin is gonna be forced to stay in a beautifully designed house while she’s here. Maybe she’ll gain good taste by osmosis.”

 

“You’re going to regret that choice, I’m sure.” Clarke raised her eyebrow.

 

“Not as much as you’ll regret letting Octavia send invites out to the HGTV people,” Bellamy said with a knowing look. 

 

“Use the money you’d use on the rehearsal dinner to bail me out after I assault Joanna Gaines.” 

 

“Got it.” 


End file.
